


Heavy Bags

by kuonji



Series: Beginnings And Endings [2]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 01:58:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion piece to Beginnings And Endings.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>He'd go bare knuckles today, and in his street clothes, no less. In this place, nobody would bother him about it, unless he were careless enough to leave blood.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Bags

**Author's Note:**

> This story was nominated for an [Ollie Award](http://community.livejournal.com/sh911award_com) in 2010, category "Nail Biting Award (Best angst story)".
> 
> Alternative Links:  
> <http://starskyhutch911.livejournal.com/191319.html>  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/28342.html>

Jab. Uppercut. Jab again. Body punch. Feint right, then cross.

***

_Halloway's neck under his forearm felt good. Solid. Starsky felt like he was flying away from the Earth, and he needed this connection of flesh on flesh._

_He needed the fear in Halloway's eyes. He needed the outraged, strangled cry. He needed the shouts around him as they pulled him off, flailing and fighting -- muscle resisting muscle, bone grinding bone._

***

Left jab. Right jab. Cross. Dodge. Back to the right, then a left hook.

His hands were sweating inside his gloves, the cuffs tight around his bruised wrists as he threw himself forward again and again.

Sweat trickled down the small of his back. It teased his skin and made him shiver. He could feel his shorts sticking to him. He twisted hard into the next cross and felt the material pull a bit, providing a miniscule surge of hope for relief, but it was so damp it stayed plastered to him.

The thump-thump-thump as he connected with the bag was what made it all worth it. That meaty sound kicked up his satisfaction so that his grimace of exertion felt like a leer.

***

_"He gave me a gold chain once."_

_Starsky darted a look at Hutch, beside him at the observation window. The bored-looking hooker on the other side was playing with the ring on her left index finger._

_"Yeah?"_

_"It was the first time he--" Hutch wiped a hand across his mouth. "The first time we fucked." He put the tips of his fingers on the glass. The slight dampness of his skin caused five translucent fog points to form. "I had it appraised when I got older. It was worth two hundred dollars."_

_Starsky didn't say anything, just unobtrusively pushed his balled fists into his pockets. He didn't want to ask why the hell Hutch had kept the thing. He didn't want to hear if Hutch maybe still had it._

_He kept wondering when Hutch would finally slip up and tell him the fucker's name._

_"Can you believe that? The man's got his own house, he's wearing nice suits, drives a nice car -- and he blows two hundred dollars on a dumb kid he could've had for free." Hutch shook his head, still staring through the window, where the hooker was now looking listlessly up at the ceiling with her arms dangling down. She looked like a poorly painted rag doll.  "I just don't understand these people."_

***

The next cross went off the mark. In retaliation, Starsky flung himself into a flurry of combos, pivoting over ankle, knee, hip, shoulder, and elbow, so that his entire body powered behind every punch. He could feel the percussive force juddering back through him.

The bag vibrated under the punishment. Starsky fantasized about it ripping open at the seams, piles and pounds of insulation, stuffing, filler exploding onto the floor and whitening the air.

But it never did.

***

_Starsky surveyed the gym. It was primarily for boxers, and Starsky didn't box. But five heavy bags meant that he could punch phantom faces in all morning._

_Nodding, he pulled out enough cash for two weeks, and the owner, grunting in a satisfied and therefore incurious way, left him alone._

_He'd have to get gloves for next time. He'd go bare knuckles today, and in his street clothes, no less. In this place, nobody would bother him about it, unless he were careless enough to leave blood. Another reason it trumped Vinnie's -- aside from eliminating the risk of running into Hutch._

_He took his first punch and grimaced when the bag swung away._

_"You gotta hit it straight on," offered a voice from slightly behind him. Starsky spun on the speaker with an angry glare calculated to disperse any onlookers._

_The kid -- a skinny black boy, young enough to be thoroughly unintimidated, old enough to give Starsky a sardonic look -- didn't budge. "It helps if somebody holds it for you," was all he said._

_Starsky looked him up and down. Torn denim jacket, black T-shirt, faded but clean blue jeans. No tattoos or obvious gang signs. He wore Adidas. Red._

_"Nine dollars a week. Hold the bag, and warn me if I'm about to hurt somebody."_

_The boy grinned, showing a row of small, even teeth. "Deal."_

***

"Man, you're done."

Marcus was right. When Starsky pulled back, he could feel his arms shaking with exhaustion. He could barely get the gloves off, and he let them fall to the ground when he did. He leaned forward on his thighs for a breather, his hands turned inward to better take the strain. He never checked the clock, but he knew he'd gone a little longer today than usual.

Standing, he took the offered towel and cleared the sweat from his eyes.

"Thanks." Starsky got out his wallet and removed a ten. "Keep the change and get a milkshake. Put some fat on those skinny ribs of yours."

Marcus shrugged and palmed the money. Starsky hoped he wouldn't get cigarettes instead, but he knew it was pointless to care too much.

***

_"Hey, hey, hey! New couch!"_

_Starsky obligingly let his feet fall back to the floor. He lifted his bottle of beer. "Want one?"_

_"Do I want a bottle of my own beer? Yeah, that's why I bought it," Hutch huffed, heading toward the fridge._

_"A man works up a sweat for his best buddy, and he not only doesn't get a pizza outta the deal, he's begrudged a small bottle of comfort," Starsky complained. He drained his beer and hefted the photo album in his right hand. "How come I never saw this at your old place?"_

_Hutch scowled but without real rancor. "Are you digging through my stuff now?"_

_"Just helping you unpack," Starsky returned cheerfully._

_"Don't remind me." Starsky followed his partner's pained gaze, taking in the boxes piled around the tiny cottage._

_"You were a cute kid," Starsky commented, as a distraction._

_"What?"_

_Starsky pointed down to a photo of Hutch, at maybe twelve years old, standing in front of a church with his arms stretched out towards the sky. He had on a big white robe and a pair of paper wings strapped to his back. "Cute," he repeated._

_Hutch leaned over the couch to stare at the photo over Starsky's shoulder. His brow was slightly creased, like he was trying to figure out what Starsky meant. "Huh."_

***

The communal shower was littered with cracked tiles, and the first showerhead didn't work. The Out Of Order sign that had been on it since Starsky started coming here was warped with moisture. The water was good and hot, at any rate.

Not that it mattered. His showers were merely efficient, a necessary step for covering his tracks.

There were three other men in the locker room, all of them regulars. None of them knew each other nor cared to. Starsky liked it that way. Nobody lifted a brow when he strapped on his piece, but his way was magically clear whenever he entered and exited.

He liked it that way too.

He pocketed his combo lock, picked up his duffle with his secondhand pair of gloves and his towels damp with sweat and water inside, and headed out.

***

_"The bastard made out like Hutch begged for it. I tell you, if'n the Feds had let either of us in that room, he would've been mince."_

_Edwards closed his locker door with a bang. He bent down to lace his boots, yanking the strings hard._

_"Who else heard him?" Starsky asked, quiet._

_"Jesus, who didn't? He didn't care about the girls he cut up, but he sure as hell wanted everybody to know he warn't no fag." He looked up, the laces of his second shoe still cutting into his hands. "Nobody believes a word. Rapists all have the same story."_

_Starsky slammed a palm against the bank of lockers in front of him, so hard that his hand went instantly numb. Edwards was up like a shot._

_"Damn it all. I wish we'd'a--"_

_Starsky cut him off with a second blow. The sound of the hollow metal reverberated around the room. "Not your fault," he said into the echoes._

***

The drive back was always nice. Starsky could relax into his sore muscles and let the quiet wash over him.

He'd never liked getting up with the sun before, but he had to admit that it made something in him feel brighter. Or maybe that was just the adrenaline from the exercise.

Watching the sun come up should not become a Starsky tradition, he decided firmly.

***

_"He let me call him by his first name."_

_The last of the daylight had gone, but neither of them had gotten up to turn on the lights. Hutch had wound up leaning against Starsky. Starsky was half turned on the couch, braced against Hutch's weight and supporting his head on his left shoulder._

_They were still holding hands._

_"All the other kids, they called him Mister. But me, I was special. You know? God, what an idiot I was."_

_He dropped Hutch's hands for the first time in an hour, having to steel himself momentarily against the choked-off sound of protest that elicited. He wriggled his left hand between Hutch and the couch, and he wrapped both arms around his partner's disarmingly slim waist. He squeezed Hutch to him. Hard._

_Maybe it was the darkness. It gave him license to be sappy. Maybe he was just too worn out to make less of the truth. In any case, he kissed Hutch's hair and told him, "You are special. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."_

_Hutch tilted his head back and looked up at Starsky's face. Against the dim light of the single street lamp outside, Starsky couldn't have been more than a silhouette to him. But Hutch must have seen something he liked, because the shape of his voice formed a smile:_

_"Yeah, I guess I am."_

***

"Mornin'." Vinnie pointed towards the showers.

Hutch was rinsing his hair when Starsky got there.

For a moment Starsky stood just outside the steam and watched. The water poured over his partner's wide shoulders, along his broad, slightly forward bent back. Slower rivulets ran around his ribs, down his muscular abdominals. It wet down the sparse hairs on his flat belly.

He took a good long unabashed look at Hutch's crotch. A man's cock hung there, dripping. A man's thatch of hair. Sinewy thighs. Powerful calves that bunched as Hutch shifted his weight. Long legs, long feet, long toes, built for balance and light movement. For running.

For _chasing_. For running down a perp. For springing up flights of stairs. For kicking down doors.

Strong.

His partner was strong.

"You done ogling?" Hutch turned off the water with one hand and sluiced water out of his hair with the other.

"Yeah, just about," Starsky replied, trying on an easy smile to match the one curling his partner's mouth. He caught up a towel from the pile beside him and tossed it Hutch-wards. Hutch, sometimes uncoordinated, often clumsy, caught it in midair.

Long fingers. Large hands. Triceps and forearm flexed.

Hutch dried his face and patted his chest dry. Quick swipes to the rest of his body, then he started toweling his hair. His pecs rippled with the movement.

Starsky had seen his partner take on a 300-pound perp once. His arms had wrapped around the guy's neck from behind like a vice. He'd twisted him off balance and delivered a blow with his knee that had knocked the big guy down and out like a felled tree before Starsky got there to back him up.

Hutch could throw a forty-year-old sicko to the floor in half a second and eat him for breakfast.

"I'm starving. Have you had anything yet?"

"Nope. How about Sal's?"

"For breakfast? Are you kidding me?"

Starsky held up his hands in surrender. "All right, all right, you choose." He pointed a finger. "But you're buyin'."

Hutch shook his own finger at him in warning but didn't protest. He snapped Starsky in the ass with the wet towel on his way to the lockers.

  
END.

**Author's Note:**

> _For JG, and the innocent treadmills she has abused._
> 
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> I think abuse rarely has to do with physical strength of the victim. However, I feel that Starsky is such a physical and straightforward person himself that he can't help but relate the two. I also think that, consciously or not, he is reassured by Hutch's comfort and confidence.
> 
> Boxing terminology referenced from [Ringside By Gus Boxing Terms](http://www.ringsidebygus.com/boxing-terms.html)
> 
>  
> 
> [Beginnings And Endings Index](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/34137.html)
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:  
>      [The Fix (the "candy will kill you" remix)](http://community.livejournal.com/meandthee_wish/6894.html) (Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji  
>      [Principal](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/18091.html) (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji  
>      [The Little Things](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/19657.html) (Stargate SG-1), by kuonji  
>      [Fatal Disruption](http://community.livejournal.com/starskyhutch911/151029.html) (Starsky & Hutch), by Vedette Ciel  
>      [Inmates](http://kassidyrae.com/shslash/Inmates_Full_Version.htm) (Starsky & Hutch), by Cynatnite


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